“Commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Founding of the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia”

7/20/2025 10:14

The 40th anniversary ceremony of the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia was held on Saturday morning, March 1, at the Rayzan International Conference Center in Tehran.

CGIE: What follows is the speech delivered by Kāẓim Mūsavī Bojnurdī, the CEO of the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, at this ceremony:

It is now over forty years since the Center was officially registered in the winter of 1983. We’ve come a long and challenging way. Publishing the Great Islamic Encyclopedia in Persian, Arabic, and English is a major achievement, with the Persian version reaching volume 25 and volume 26 about to be released. Other specialized encyclopedias are also being written and some volumes have already been published, like the Encyclopedia of Iran, the Encyclopedia of Greater Tehran, the Encyclopedia of Iranian Folk Culture, the Encyclopedia of Iranian Law, the Encyclopedia of Iranian Art, the Encyclopedia of Iranian Languages and Dialects, the Encyclopedia of the Persian Gulf, and the Encyclopedia of Ancient Iran. The comprehensive 20-volume History of Iran and a five-volume Comprehensive Geography of Iran have also been added to this record.

One of the Center’s greatest achievements is the collaboration of many Iranian and even non-Iranian specialists. We’ve also established a massive library with over 1,300,000 volumes, focusing on Islamic and Iranian studies, plus more than 185 personal collections from prominent figures—each a unique treasure. The library is now compiling catalogs of Persian books and articles, as well as lists of manuscripts and lithographs. The Supreme Scientific Council has always been a gathering of the country’s scientific and cultural luminaries over the past half-century.

Most importantly, a generation of young researchers has been trained here over these forty years, and the Center is proud to consider them invaluable assets to national culture. The idea of creating an encyclopedia for a deeper understanding of Iranian and Islamic civilization seemed almost impossible after the Revolution. During my time in Parliament, I considered leaving politics to pursue big cultural goals, especially given my family background and personal experience, since many revolution enthusiasts were already active in politics and government, while science and culture seemed less attractive. Despite thousands of books and articles in various languages, it was clear we needed a uniquely Iranian encyclopedia, the product of our own research and thought.

At first, most experts considered such an endeavor impossible, suggesting at best we translate and slightly expand the Leiden Encyclopedia of Islam. But I remained hopeful and started with very limited resources. Early on, I realized we needed a major library, as existing ones were inadequate. With the help of the library’s director and my own personal collection of about 2,000 books, we began and continued. Selection of entries and note-taking started with the cooperation of a few friends, colleagues, and sometimes family members. It was obvious we needed the best minds in each research field to write and supervise articles. The late Dr. Ahmad Tafazzoli was the first to join and was deeply committed from the start. Thanks to his and the library director’s support, renowned scholars like Dr. Abbas Zaryāb Khoyī, Dr. Sayyid Fatḥullah Mojtabāyī, and Dr. Āẕartāsh Azarnush joined us, and we benefited greatly from their advice from the very beginning; Following the presence of these distinguished figures, the Supreme Scientific Council of the Center was gradually completed with the addition of other scholars. The oldest department of the Center is the Scientific Files Section, which had no precedent in Iran at the time and was one of our Center’s innovations.

Young and talented researchers, introduced by professors, would first search for sources and references on an entry, copy the relevant pages, and compile everything they found into a file organized by the date of authorship. This file was ultimately given to the author. In this system, the author had relatively good access to sources and references, which helped organize their thoughts and enabled them to seek out more sources. The scientific file was also useful in other stages, such as source verification and the various stages of editing. From the beginning, the Scientific Files Section was the heart of our Center, where researchers learned to work with sources and, after a while, could often write articles themselves. In this way, the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia was established, and we strove to identify and address cultural and national needs. From the outset, the Center has regarded the preservation of national culture and the Persian language as its mission and has acted accordingly. “In short, this Center, its library, and everything it has and will have, are dedicated to Iran and the people of Iran.”

I now consider it my moral duty to thank all the distinguished professors who, from the very beginning, kept the torch of this scientific center burning and who have now passed away, and to keep their memory alive in the nation’s consciousness. In alphabetical order, they are: Āẕartāsh Azarnush, Qamar Aryan, Iraj Afshar, Hasan Anousheh, Muḥammad Ibrahim Bāstānī Pārīzī, Ahmad Tafazzoli, Jawād Ḥadīdī, Sharaffudin Khorāsānī, Mohammad Dabir Siāqī, Enayatollah Reza, Abbas Zaryāb Khoyī, Abdolhossein Zarrinkoob, Manūchihr Sotoudeh, Dariush Shayegan, Jaʿfar Shoar, Davood Feirahi, Badruzzamān Qarīb, Fatimah Karīmī, Muḥammad Hassan Ganjī, Wilferd Madelung, Yahiya Māhyār Navabi, Muḥammad Mūsavī Bojnurdī, Muḥammad Ali Molavi Arabshahi, and Ahmad Mahdavi Damghani.

I am also grateful to Ayatollah Mahdi Karroubi, who supported us from the very beginning and spared no effort. I am thankful to my wife, Mrs. Amirah Farhang, whose companionship and empathy made this achievement possible, and to my dear children—Hassan, Hossein, Ali, and Mohsen—whose help enabled me to persevere through forty challenging years. I am also grateful to my noble and hardworking colleagues at the Center, who have endured with patience, empathy, faith, and belief in the rightness of this path, and have remained true to their commitment despite many shortcomings. Throughout my life, whether in politics or in cultural work, I have always sought to serve Iran, never deviating from this goal for a moment. Now, I am happy and satisfied that four decades of my eighty-two years have been devoted to a task that will benefit not only today’s Iranians but also future generations, and will make the glorious culture of Iran renowned and esteemed. I hope I have been successful and fortunate in this endeavor.